Salute Your Soul by Future Pilot AKA (CD Album)

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"Hello this is Philip Glass, and you're listening to Future Pilot Aka". Sushil K. Dade (aka Future Pilot Aka) obviously knows how to make friends and influence people. "Salute Your Soul", his second full-lengther, has a cast which may not be exactly stellar, but is certainly impressive. As well as the nasal tones of the eminent minimalist, "Salute Your Soul" features Mikey Dread, Vic Goddard, James Kirk (late of Orange Juice) and many, many more of his friends, who all got together for a recording session in his flat during the long, balmy summer of 2003.
Together, the motley crew took all their diverse backgrounds and influences, gleefully lobbed them together and stood back to watch what would happen.
"Mein Nahi Jana" opens with the said Phil's voice cutting through swathes of radio static (the only other audible voice muttering ominously about the Bush administration) before a big soulful horn section cuts into an Indian pop refrain and Mikey Dread toasting away, warning us (after Woody Guthrie) that "this machine kills fascists". It's a glorious life-affirming mess that sounds like peak-time Cornershop and sets the tone for the rest of the record.
Many tracks wander in and out, reappearing later on in different forms, giving a sense of cohesion to the overall record. "The Land of Love" is a minute of swirling organ that sounds frustrating until it is picked up later on "Love of the Land", this time with Godard and Kirk singing wearily over the top - "the love of the land, it's what your killing for".
It seems like the hot weather and the sense of companionship at the recording contrasted with the dreadful state of the world last summer - this is a record that is both dreamily pop (check the baroque, folky "First Moon", which again later reappears as "Salute the Divine Within You") as well as being fiercely political, if it is possible to be both laid back and fierce. The air of resignation of many of the songs makes you wonder if there isn't something about Dade's recourse to old forms of protest music that is somehow reassuring, as if protest itself was a thing of the past, or may make you think about how the huge protest movement against the Iraq war was simply ignored by our governments. Perhaps we're too used to expecting protest music to be hard work. Listening to someone shout angrily over militant rap doesn't actually solve or illuminate anything more than listening to the luscious version of the Staples Singers' "If You're Ready, Come Go With Me", and it's a darned sight easier on the ears.
No questions answered then, but lots asked (including the track which asks "Dammers or Czukay" as if inviting us to make a choice. I'll have both at once please), and ones to ponder as you lose yourself in the 11 minute drifting meander of "Heaven Celebrated on Earth"
They used to say "the personal is the political" and Sushil Dade and his mates have taken that axiom on board perfectly. Here's to the end of wars, long hot summers, and friends.